Massive retrospective techno album by Thomas Brinkmann

German minimal techno and experimental producer Thomas Brinkmann is back with another album "Retrospektiv". It's gonna be a massive techno release of 5x12" coming out early October 2017.

First things first. Brinkmann has been around the bushes since late 70s even before completing his art studies in the German city of Düsseldorf. I've red somewhere that he was expelled for his philosophies. Whatever that means.
Throughout the 80s he was experimenting and manipulating records. Highly inspired by names such as the Japanese electronic musician and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto. Wolfgang Voigt aka Mike Ink's Studio1 was apparently the reasons why he wanted to do recordings on a more serious level.

In mid 90s he received great success within the electronic techno and music scene with his highly advanced and experimental re-works of fellow techno producers Mike Ink and Richie Hawtin. This was stunningly performed by adding an additional tone-arm to a turntable and playing physically damaged records on the super turntable with separate output for both left and right channels. After hearing this Ink quickly released two of his recordings on his Berlin techno label Profan. Variationen I and II.

Brinkmann has released records under various monikers. Soul Centre is my favorite. There's a slight touch of Moodymann on the records. Brinkmann kicked off his minimal techno experimental Max Ernst label in late 90s. Highly abstract and sophisticated dub techno releases.

"What You Hear (Is What You Hear)" came out in 2015. This was a typical Brinkmann release. Looping sound scapes which you don't wanna leave behind. I personally find these ambient patterns extremely beautiful. The structure of the sounds is overwhelming. For me listening to the album is absolutely inner peace. Zen.

I can't wait to get my fingers on this monster 5x12". It's filled with old unreleased dance tracks. A little bit of this a little bit of that. Not so structured and nicely built as for instance "What You Hear (Is What You Hear)", but on the other hand the album title is promising something else. Furthermore you'll have a cool 20 page book with photos and notations by Brinkmann.

Listen to samples at juno.

Until then enjoy Thomas Brinkmann in Toronto. Visuals installed and provided by wuestenarchitekten.

music to interrogate by

sctv vs move d (excerpt part2) from Jonas Grossmann on Vimeo.
viva "versus" special (2002) celebrating the 10th anniversary of source records.
music from the source records catalogue selected and mixed by david moufang.
sctv videoclips (1993-1995) remixed by jonas grossmann.
original program 50 min. excerpt part 2.
music: jan jelinek - music to interrogate by / move d - µSt (from the source records album "opensource.code" - 2002).

Laurel Halo - What's in My Bag?

Actress - Falling Rizlas

London based techno producer Actress came out with his album AZD earlier in 2017 on Ninja Tune. Now the video of the track "Falling Rizlas" produced by Dean Blunt is available on YouTube.
Beautiful black/white crime scene footage.

Best New York vinyl digger out there!

I've for a long time been a huge Madteo fan. Have also been posting material about his releases earlier on the blog. For me personally I sort of either like one's dj skills or his/her producer skills. Madteo have both skills one could say. To the extreme. Of course there are many good dj/producers out there, but I rarely see people with this amount of digging skills or patience if you will. Collecting wax.

If you're not familiar with who I am talking about Madteo or Matteo Ruzzon is out of North Eastern Italy and has been living in Queens, New York for something like 20 years doing house and techno. As a teenager going to numerous raves in local Italian town Remini he met up with fellow American dude who invited him to the USA. The rest is history. Before that he was doing a semester in California discovering reggae and dub. This was sort of a shape shifter within his musical preferences.

I guess if I was to pinpoint what I like about his music that would be his ability to balance the mellow with the jolly. Major vs minor. There's a strong affection towards the darker and moodier textures. However, this combined with bits from disco, dancehall, soul, latin or whatever makes IMO his stuff quite special. Highly original.

As you are able to hear in his sets and especially on his $TREET WAX series there has been a lot of digging putted this. You don't hear the usual house or techno stuff here. It's impressive how he's able to transfer some old, cheap records into something quite magical.
This very set starts quite mellow, gradually turning into something like New York in the 70s. Give it a listen.

20 years with the best techno and house label out there!

My all time favourite house and techno imprint Perlon turns 20 years in 2017. This is for me quite impressive. The label goes hand in hand with the Panorama Bar party Get Perlonized! which is one of the longest running parties at the Berlin house and techno scene. 
 I've had many different fav. minimal techno labels thoughtout the years. However, Perlon has for me always stayed on top of the the rest. Even the not so impressive releases still have some character to them. I remeber been hooked to the label at around 2005 or so. At that time I was inpressed by the stuff from Matt John, Dandy Jack, Ricardo Villalobos and others. However, I later realized that the most interesting stuff was released before the year of 2000. Here is my top 3 Perlon picks. Long live Perlon, long live vinyl.

Ricardo Villalobos - Frank Mueller Melodram

This track from 1999 blew me away conpletely. This is 9 minutes of intensively repetitive techhouse drums. Also it has quite a soft and introvert feel to it. I think this is Ricardo Villalobos' first release on Perlon. A lot has happened since then. Besides Ricardo there was just so many good artists releasing on Perlon at that time. Founders Zip and Markus Nikolai and Pantytec just to name a few.

Mathew Jonson and Luciano - Alpine Rocket

Let's fast forward to 2003. Both Mathew Jonson and Luciano were new kids on the block. Luciano, who was a former guitar player and Jonson who sort of came from a more jazz environment where has was a drummer. This release came to life on Jonson's first trip to Europe. Jonson and Lucioano complement each other so well. Luciano's percussions on top of Jonson's chords. This is an absolutely amazing record.

Portable - Release

Alan Abrahams, that’s the man behind Portable, born and raised in South Africa, where he started to produce music in the 90’s. This 2008 record is also leaning towards a more introvert and darker side side. Actually both sides are amazing deep house cuts. Super atmospheric and experimental.

New album from Danish dj Kölsch

Danish dj Rune RK alias Kölsch is back with his forthcoming album 1989 somewhere mid September. I'm not perfectly clear on the specific date. The album will be released on Cologne techno imprint Kompakt as the third album in the trilogy.
The tech house album "1977" came out in 2013 and two years later followed by the techno album "1983". Personally I'm a huge fan of 1983. It has certain similiarities to the former trance releases on sister label Speicher. All 3 albums are to be seen as autobiographical whereas the last one has a more sentimental grey'ish vibe to it. Several of the future tracks are titlet "grey" in different languages. The album is tackling and focusing on darker childhoold memories such as his parent's divorce and the difficulties within adolescence.

I find this album and in fact the whole trilogy quite important. This dj has always been a hit banger doing all sorts of interesting and not so interesting electronic music. To be honest. He has been involved in numerous project. All of them leaning towards the happier side of artistic expression one could say. Also the Artifical Funk project together with brother and industrial designer Johannes Torpe are classic fast forward productions. I like it, don't get me wrong.
Rune RK started playing the drums in various funk bands i early 90s and soon after that he spent three years producing hip-hop tunes for Copenhagen rappers. The funkiness of his releases has always been quite visible. Maybe that is why I find this trilogy so important, because this is something else.
Please leave a comment when you get a chance to have a listen.
yo.